Paul Low was born and raised in Elizabeth, South Australia, which is conveniently half-way between the state capital of Adelaide and the Barossa Valley. He completed his PhD with Michael I. Bruce in 1997 having studied the synthesis and reactions of metal complexes bearing carbon-rich ligands. Paul subsequently moved to Canada to take up a Canadian Government Laboratories Visiting Fellowship at the NRC Steacie Institute for Molecular Sciences with Arthur J. Carty, before moving to Durham to take up a Lectureship in Inorganic Chemistry in 1999. He was promoted to Reader in 2006 and to a Chair in 2010. Paul is a Fellow of the Royal Australian Chemical Institute (2008), and currently holds and EPSRC Leadership Fellowship.

His research interests are based around the synthesis and redox properties of highly conjugated organic and organometallic compounds, with topics ranging from the exploration of mixed-valence systems and intramolecular electron transfer to molecular electronics. His group employs electrochemical, spectroelectrochemical and DFT-based computations to assist in these studies. In addition to his role with Chemistry Central, Paul also serves on the Editorial and Advisory Boards of Journal of Cluster Science and Organometallics.